Cross Cultural Implications for Survey Research: lessons from the Bright Futures Project

• In Event: Advanced methods in cross national and cultural comparisons using process data

Proposal

The Bright Futures survey (2017) is a multi-country survey of students enrolled in tertiary education (undergraduate and masters courses) in China and the UK. The sample has a two-stage stratified design. Universities were stratified by ranking and, in the UK, by the number of Chinese students hosted by the institution. Within selected universities Chinese and British students were randomly selected. For China, the sample also covers different provinces in the North, South and East of the country. Fieldwork took place in2017. Participating universities contacted sampled students directly with the survey request.

Using this unique and representative dataset on Chinese students in two different countries (UK n= 1,317, China n= 2,730) and its complementary sample of British natives (n=1,588), this methodological paper explores how migration and culture impact the outcomes of survey research. This survey represents a rare opportunity to conduct thorough research using new evidence on how different academic environments, culture, political context and language shape responses and the quality of information obtained using survey methods.

Specifically, our paper focuses on four different outcomes, namely (1) substantive differences in response patterns to sensitive questions by Chinese students in China and the UK (such as the satisfaction with democracy in China); (2) total and item non-response rates in both groups and (3) time invested in completing the questionnaire in both settings (where perceived legitimacy of the survey request, and the authority of the requesting person in the university might differ) and (4) differences in the quality of answers given using a trap question.

Authors

• Dorothee Schneider, University of Essex

• Mónica Méndez, CIS

• Hector Cebolla Boado, UNED, Madrid

• Yasemin Soysal, University of Essex